Not Dead Yet responded to the comment that “safeguards” will protect people:

Even if safeguards exist for terminally ill individuals, they argue, disabled patients represent a vulnerable demographic that could, in the future, be targeted both by a contracting health care system and by insurance companies worried about controlling costs and unwilling to pay for expensive care.

Earlier this month the American College of Physicians issued a policy statement against the legalization of assisted suicide. “This practice is problematic given the nature of the patient-physician relationship, affects trust in that relationship as well as in the profession, and fundamentally alters the medical profession’s role in society,” the organization’s position paper states.

The Washington Times reported this past May that insurance companies in states where physician-assisted suicide is legal have refused to cover expensive, life-saving treatments for patients, but have offered to help them end their lives instead.

Drugs for assisted suicide cost about $75 to $100, making them far less expensive than providing medical care.

Anita Cameron, director of minority outreach for Not Dead Yet, which opposes the measure, insists that economic pressure will help normalize euthanasia, and that in that environment the potential for abuse to the disabled community would be real.